


We're Only Children Still

by Pennin_Ink



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon character suicide, Emotional Support, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Revenge, Self-Hatred, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennin_Ink/pseuds/Pennin_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It may not be the worst club to find yourself joining, but it's got to rank up there. It's not the common ground either of them would've chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Only Children Still

Stiles didn’t even look up at her as Allison approached the rock. It was...strange. She’d used her hunter training to track him down to this place, this little park that was barely more than a half-hearted clearing with a couple big rocks and a fire barrell by the treeline. He made for disconcerting prey, and to Allison it felt like her two lives were bleeding together entirely too much.

****

“If I start with ‘I’m sorry’, will you let me talk?” She hazarded.

****

Stiles did look up at her then. “Sorry?”

****

She shrugged. “The things I did...to the pack, to Scott. I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t change anything, but I am sorry.”

****

“I’m not Scott.” Stiles said. “And I’m not one of Derek’s minions. We’re fine.”

****

Allison took a breath and forced herself to keep outside of Stiles’ personal space. “No we’re not. There, um, there’s something you need to know.”

****

Stiles side-eyed her, the corners of his mouth curving downward. “What?”

****

Allison chewed on her lower lip. “It’s my fault.”

****

Stiles’ eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Care to expand on that a little?”

****

She couldn’t meet his eye. “What happened to you. What my grand--what Gerard did. It was my fault. After my mom--” her throat closed around the words, and she had to choke back on the pain before she could speak again. “Mom was the leader. Now I am. It’s always the women, and I’m the only one--the only one left. Gerard was under my command when he attacked you. I should’ve known. I should’ve stopped him.”

****

Stiles eyed her up and down, then turned his head away to look straight ahead. “You wouldn’t have stood a chance.” He told her.

****

She balked, but Stiles wasn’t looking at her and he plowed on. “Gerard was, what? Sixty? Seventy? He grew up hunting, he was a megalomaniac or a violent psychopath or something. I mean, you do know he was manipulating you, right? According to Scott, he was really good at it. He’d have to be. I mean, you just said it’s the Argent women who have all the power, right? A guy as power hungry as him would have to learn to be really good at manipulating the women in charge of him to do things his way. And he had a lot of time to practice. Probably started on his own mom.”

****

“You’ve been thinking about this.” Allison said, finally coming to sit beside him on the rock.

****

“He started this whole shitstorm.” Stiles said, still not looking at her. “Your dad told Scott he worked Kate over the same way he did to you. You know maybe, if he never got his claws in her, she never would’ve burned Derek’s family to death. And then Peter wouldn’t have almost died and gone insane, and Laura Hale wouldn’t have been the new alpha, and Peter wouldn’t have murdered her for it, and Scott wouldn’t have been bitten and...none of this would have happened. Without him.”

****

He hung his head. “It’s pretty toxic, you know? I keep thinking about, like, the lives we would be living if none of this happened. I even asked my dad what Derek was like when he was a kid.”

****

Allison snapped her head up, interested despite herself. “What did he say?”

****

Stiles shrugged. “He only really met him right after the fire, so he was pretty damaged. I looked through the yearbooks, though. He looked really...normal. Not sure how he dealt with the eye thing, though.”

****

Allison nodded. She rubbed at her arms, feeling a chill in the warm air. “Do you think I’m a monster?”

****

Stiles looked down at his hands. “I think...I think I don’t know what a monster is anymore. You’re scary, but so is Scott, so is pretty much everyone I know these days. And I don’t think I can trust you. But I don’t know if you’re a monster.”

****

Allison stared at the dirt under her fingernails, struggling to find the right words.

****

“But I also remember what it was like.” Stiles said, and something in his voice hurt to listen to. “That first morning, waking up and for a little while you don’t remember that she’s--that she’s not gonna be downstairs waiting for you. It’s the worst part. It’s worse than waiting for it to happen. It’s worse than seeing it. It’s worse than getting the news. It’s not--not real until the next morning, is it? Not until you wake up and the world expects you to keep living your life without her. ‘Cause when you do remember...it’s like she just died all over again. And she keeps doing it. You walk into a room, you come home from school, you get out of the shower, you pour yourself some cereal, and every time you turn around you see this empty space where she’s supposed to be and it--it won’t stop being real.”

****

He was crying. Allison had never seen him cry like this, like he was choking on it. It took her a moment to realize that she was crying too, and once she did, everything hurt. Her head, her throat, her chest. The air was crushing her, and she thought that if Stiles tried to hug her or thouch her right now, she’d probably fall apart.

****

But Stiles didn’t touch her. He just sat there and wept, just as silently and painfully as she did.

****

“I wanted someone to blame.” He choked, when he could. “There wasn’t anyone, but I kept looking. The doctors, the nurses, my dad. I wanted someone I could hit. I wanted to make someone else hurt, like maybe it would take some of the pain away from me.”

****

Allison shook her head. “It doesn’t.” She told him, hating how fragile and thin her voice sounded through the tears. “It just makes it worse. God...I hate what I am now. I hate everything in me. It’s like I forgot how to do anything else. And at the end of it...she’s still gone. And I ruined myself for nothing.”

****

Stiles shook his head, and she expected him to say something about how she’s not ruined, how she has to learn to forgive herself, but he doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head.

****

“I don’t want to do this anymore.” She confessed, hugging herself tight like it was the only thing holding her together. “I wanna wake up. I wanna go home. I wanna forget all of this and--and go back to the beginning. I just...I just want my _mom_.”

****

Stiles nodded at that. “It’s never going to be right again.” He admitted, barely above a whisper. “Your family is going to stay broken forever. Your dad, you, it’s all going to change and none of it is going to be good. And it will. Not. Get. Better. Not ever. You’re just gonna get used to it, and that’s gonna hurt in a whole new way. There’s nothing you can do except remember you’re all he has left. Okay? You’re it.”

****

Allison nodded. “Thanks. For not lying to me.”

****

“The first time you laugh is gonna suck.” He warned her. “You’re gonna hate yourself for being happy without her. But your dad is gonna need to see it happen. He’s gotta know you’re gonna survive this. Okay? That’s what you do now. You survive. You lie until you believe it so he doesn’t think he can’t take care of you.”

****

“Okay.” Allison said. She didn’t like seeing this side of Stiles. It felt like spying on something private. But she knew the only other person who might understand what she was feeling was Derek, and she could never go to him. “Thanks.”

****

She got up to leave, but she’d only taken a few steps before Stiles spoke up.

****

“Allison?”

****

“Yeah?”

****

Stiles met her eye, his face calm despite the blotchy red on his cheeks and around his eyes.

****

“Don’t forget he’s all you have left, too.”

****

Allison hesitated a bit, thinking it over. Then she let out a shaky breath, nodded, and left Stiles alone in the clearing. On her way back to the main road, she saw Scott loping out of the treeline and slowing to walk sedately toward his friend. Every single cell in her body ached to go to him, to fall into his arms and breathe in the warm scent of him until she was lost in the private universe they once shared. But she’d shattered that dream, now. All she could do was watch in silence as Scott knelt beside Stiles and rested his forehead against Stiles’ shoulder. She wondered what Scott was saying, if he was asking about the scent of her still lingering on the rock beside Stiles, if he could smell the tears which had barely dried on Stiles’ cheeks, or if it was something else entirely.

****

And she was tired. Tired of losing things, of breaking things. She was tired of the cold, sharp hatred always stabbing at her mind. She was tired of avoiding her own gaze in the mirror, tired of watching her dad move around the house like he was sleep walking. She loved Scott, and hated it. She missed her mom, and hated it. She worried about her dad, and she hated it.

****

“Mommy...” She cried into the steering wheel, her voice high and thready and weak, like a child’s.

****

“Mommy...” She hiccuped, her head too heavy to lift, her shoulders shaking.

****

“I’m scared.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Er...happy Mother's Day?
> 
> Posting this raw because writing it took a pretty hefty emotional toll on me. If there's enough interest I'll consider a rewrite.


End file.
